Karyn turned and looked at Zoe and Mikey, who had followed her into Jon's house. Mikey walked up to her. "Karyn? Karyn Black? Is that you, or are you someone else?"
"Huh?" Karyn said.
"Who is this?" Jon asked. "I think she thinks she knows me."
"Her name is Karyn" Mikey said. "She's Jon's best friend. At least, I think it's Karyn..."
Karyn looked at Mikey and Zoe, then she turned back to Jon. To Jon, who stared at her like.. like she didn't recognize her.... it must have been a wish, she told herself. But what could Jon have possibly have wished for that would have caused this?
Karyn had slept in that morning, like she did most Saturday mornings, rising at last at around eleven. She'd lazed around the house for a while, wondering what to do with her day. There was supposed to be a festival in the park that afternoon; she'd thought about asking Jon if he wanted to go. Still feeling pleasantly sleepy, and without a definite plan for the afternoon, she hadn't bothered changing out of her PJs yet, and in fact she was still dressed in pajama pants and a tank top now as she stood in Jon's living room.. Of course, the tank top felt wholly inequate for her now, with her newly oversized breasts, a fact that was driven home for Karyn when she spotted Zoe--who had never shown any signs that she had noticed of being gay, or even bi--staring fixedly at her chest. Karyn wrapped her arms around her chest uneasily.
It had been at breakfast--or lunch, considering the time of day, though Karyn had munched on a bowl of cereal and a piece of toast--that things had turned weird. Karyn had been studying her parents curiously; they had changed along with Karyn when she'd made her stupid accidental wish. Her mother's breasts, like Karyn's, were now large and full, having grown at least a couple of cup sized overnight. Her father, whose dark hair had been beginning to take on the first telltale signs of grey, was now a bright, platinum blond that matched Karyn's own long hair. Neither of her parents had noticed anything strange about their new appearance. Karyn guessed their transformation must have been a ripple of her own wish; to allow for her own appearance, Karyn's parents' DNA had been scrambled around a bit.
Suddenly her mother had leapt up from the table, staring down at her body and clutching her chest, and shouing words that Karyn had never heard her mother--normally a somewhat demure woman--use before. At first Karyn thought her mom had suddenlt become aware of the changes to her body, but then her mom had started saying something about being a man. Her father had tried to talk her mother down, but when he had reached out to console her, he suddenly stopped, and then he started to act strangely as well. He began sayin his name was Marley, and that he was four years old, and that he wanted his mommy. Karyn stared at her parents in disbelief.
Karyn had spent the next half hour trying to calm her parents down, or at least to get a clearer understanding of what had happened to them, why they suddenly believed they were other people. It was no use, though; they were both too frantic, too confused, and too insistent that they were the people they now believed themselves to be.
So Karyn had marched across the street to Jon's house. The only answer--the only explanation for her parents behavior that made any sense--was thatJon had made some careless wish with his wishing stone, and just as Karyn's own blundered wish had transformed her parents' bodies as well, Jon's wish must have had some sort of ripple effect that had warped her parents' minds.
Now, looking at her very confused best friend, Karyn began to suspect she wasn't going to get easy answers from him. Whatever Jon's wish had been, it seemed to have affected him as well. Jon didn't seem to recognize Karyn, although they had known each other for mostof their lives. He didn't even seem to be speaking like himself, moving like himself; Karyn knew all the little nuances of Jon's behavior intimately, and she realized with growing worry that this Jon didn't feel like her Jon.
There was a knock at the door. Jon, Zoe, and Mikey all looked at each other, as though they didn't know what to do... then at last Jon shrugged and went to the door. As he opened it, Karyn saw a young blonde woman, a couple of years older than Karyn and Jon, on the other side of the door. Jon's eyes grew wide, and he said, "Oh my God... Jon?"
"Yeah," the girl said, smiling weakly.
Jon stared at the girl, then slowly reached his hands up and touched her face. "Oh wow," he said. "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow..."
"Madison," Zoe said, grinning appreciatively, "you seriously traded up. Meg, you never told us you looked like this..."
"Wait," Karyn said, her head completely spinning at this point. "Wait. Stop. Can someone just... explain to me what's going on?"
The girl at the door looked at Karyn, noticing her for the first time. "Karyn! Thank goodness!" She strode past Jon and walked right up to Karyn. "Um... it is you, right?"
"Of course, it's me," Karyn said. "Who else would I..." She paused. "Wait. Do I know you?"
"Karyn," the girl said, "it's me. It's Jon."
Karyn blinked. "Huh?"
The girl took a deep breath. "It seems that... um... somehow..."--the girl said this word with special emphasis, winking as she said it, and suddenly Karyn understood what she meant--"...somehow people all over town have been switching places. We have our own bodies, but everyone who looks at us sees us as someone else. I'm Jon... I switched places with the girl you're seeing when you look at me." The girl pointed at Jon... or, rather, at the person who looked like Jon. "That's her... that's the girl who I switched with. Her name is Meagan" Then she pointed to Zoe. "That's Biff Meadows, and that's, uh..." She hesitated when she pointed at Mikey.
"Janelle," the person who looked like Mikey said. "Janelle Carter."
"Oh my God," Karyn said, "Janelle?" Karyn and Janelle had been friends for a long time, almost as long as Karyn and Jon had been friends. They had met when they'd both been in Girl Scouts together, once upon a time... they'd drifted apart once Janelle had started cheerleading and fallen in with that crowd. Karyn still liked Janelle, thouh; she was one of the few cheerleaders who was civil to less popular kids like Karyn and Jon.
Karyn turned back to the girl who was claiming to be Jon. She tried to picture Jon in there, with his own body but wearing the clothing this girl was wearing... and then she immediately burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?" The girl-who-was-Jon said.
It took Karyn a moment before she could respond; at last she said, breathlessly, "I'm... I'm thinking about you wearing that outfit, Jon." Her voice broke into a few more seconds of uncontrollable laughter. "You must look absolutely ridiculous." She sighed and wiped a couple of tears from her eyes.
Jon blushed and looked down at the tank top and skirt he--or was it she?--was wearing, and then he... she... looked up at Karyn with something that looked like a smile and a frown all at once.
"Jon," Karyn said, "I think it happened to my paremts, too. My mom's saying she's a man, and my dad think he's a little boy."
Jon frowned. With a sigh, she--even though she knew that was Jon in there, the person Karyn was looking at looked 100 percent like a girl, so Karyn couldn't quite bring herself to think of Jon as a "he" right now--she sighed and said, "It's happening all over town. I saw all sorts of people as I was driving over here... it's getting out of control, Karyn." She ran a hand over her face. Then, "Karyn. Can I talk to you in private for a few minutes?"
Karyn looked around at the other people in the room, then back at Jon. "Of course," she said. "Let's go, Jon-boy. Or, um..."--she grinned--"is that Jon-girl now?"
"Ha ha," Jon said, a scowl crossing her face.
Karyn began snickering again, and grabbed Jon's arm to lead her up to the privacy of her room... but then, suddenly, the world shifted.
Karyn blinked. Suddenly she found herself sitting in he green grass in front of a modest-sized suburban house. She looked in amazement at her surroundings, then down at herself. She was wearing a pink Dora the Explorer t-shirt and a poofy miniskirt, along with Mary Janes. She held a pair of Barbies in her hand. She could still see her long blonde hair and--she rolled her eyes--her big wish-enhanced boobs. She couldn't get rid of them even now?
She sighed. Looked like whatever had been happening to everyone else had happened to her, too.
Karyn took a moment to get her bearings... and then, suddenly, she recognized the street she was on. She had only jumped a few doors down the street; she could still see Jon's house in the distance. Dropping the dolls in the grass, she got up and strode quickly back to Jon's house. Stepping inside, she saw the same assortment of people she'd jumped away from a few moments before. People who looked like Jon, Zoe, Mikey, and this Meagan girl. But now there was someone new, standing with her back turned to the rest of the group and staring into the mirror. She was a blonde girl dressed in pajamas. Even knowing everything she knew, it took her a few seconds to figure out who this was... it was her body, her own body. The hair had thrown her off; she still wasn't used to seeing herself as a blonde.
"Karyn," Jon said, though it took Karyn a second to remember that the girl she was looking at was Jon... this was all getting so confusing. "Is that you?"
"Yeah," Karyn said.
Jon looked at Karyn for a moment, then grinned. "At least you have your red hair back."
"Huh?" Karyn said.
Jon reached into the purse she was carrying and pulled out a compact. Opening it, she handed it to Karyn. "Look, " she said.
Karyn took the compact and stared into it in amazement. Looking back at her she didn't see herself, but rather a young girl, perhaps eight years old, with long red hair a couple of shades lighter than the hair Karyn had had before her unfortunate wish. It was hard to believe that she was now the litlte girl she saw in the reflection... she'd lost over half her age. The thought of having to go back to elementary school, then go through middle school and high school all over again, made Karyn shudder. Though apparently this was pretty much par for the course. Jon probably didn't like beng a girl, either. In fact, if she'd gotten everyone's identities right, everyone in the room except for herself and the girl who must have been in her body now had switched gender. So perhaps she didn't have a right to complain.
"Looks like I finally got rid of those awful breasts, too," she said, snapping the compact shut and grinning. "Um, sort of
"Guys," Janelle said in Mikey's crackling adolescet voice, "what are you talking about? Karyn's always had blonde hair. And she's had those..." He pointed at Karyn's chest, then shook his head and pointed and the girl in Karyn's body, then threw his hands up in frustration. "You know what I mean. Karyn's always been the biggest girl in school. If you ask me, that's why Sarah hates her so much. Karyn's the one one in school with bigger boobs than her."
"I know I always wanted to do her." Biff said, bluntly.
Karyn frowned at Biff; suddenly she was glad she was hidden behind the appearance of a little girl, though now she was worried what this girl was going to have to go through. The girl was over at the mirror cooing to herself over her breasts and her hair and feeling herself up and playing with her hair as though she was a living version of the Barbie dolls she'd been holding when the two of them had switched places, though, so she supposed the girl was happy enough with her situation.
"Come on, Jon." She reached out to take Jon's hand. Then she hesitated... last time she'd touched Jon, she'd switched. Would it happen again this time?
Jon, seeing her hesitation, took Karyn's hand in her own. Jon's hand felt small, delicate, and warm... not at all like it had felt when Jon had been a guy. For some reason that stirred something in Karyn, something comfortable but a little confusing... but she forgot all about it when Jon began walking in the direction of his room.
The two of them ducked into Jon's room and shut the door. Karyn went to the mirror, amazed again at the little girl who looked back. Suddenly Jon began to laugh; her voice was sweet, high-pitched, very feminine, and her laught danced lightly through the quiet room.
"What?" Karyn asked, turning to face her friend.
"I never thought I'd see you wearing something that girly," Jon said.
"Ditto," Karyn grinned.
She looked at Jon, amazed at what she saw. Jon didn't look at all like the Jon she had known; this Jon was soft, slender, and very feminine in her body, her style of dress, and--Karyn was surprised to notice it--even her mannerisms. Biff had lumbered around and spoken with a flat, masculine voice even in Zoe's body. Janelle had seemed noticeably more feminine than Mikey usually was. But Jon's body language and speech patterns seemed natural coming from the woman whose face she wore. But, then, Jon had never really been all that macho compared to a lot of their classmates. Still... seeing her friend with breasts and hips and long blonde hair, with a pretty face and long smooth legs, and with extremely feminine attire...
There was that confusing feeling again.
"Wait," Karyn said, her thoughts latching onto something Jon had said. "You see me as her, right?" She pointed at her reflection.
Jon shook her head. "No, actually. I see you as you, Karyn. And I see Meg as herelf, and Biff as himself, and Janelle as herself... even that girl in your body. I didn't want to say anything out there, because the last time I told someone I saw him has a man and not as the girl he'd switched into, I got myself in trouble." She rolled her eyes. "But I see everyone as the person they really are. I'm the only one who does." Her eyes drifted to her dainty feet. "I think it's because I made the wish that started all of this."
"Jon," Karyn said, taking her usual seat on Jon's bed, "what on earth did you wish for that made all of this happen?"
Jon closed her eyes. "I was stupid, Karyn. I was feeling bored, and I thought to myself, 'Hey, I have this wishing stone... maybe I can liven thngs up.' So I wished something interesting would happen. Those words." She crashed onto her bed next to Karyn and put her hands over her face. "Jeeze, that was stupid. Anything could have happened." She took her hands away and grinned at Karyn. "We're probably lucky we got this. We could have all been turned into kumquats or something."
Karyn sighed. "Well... let's get the stone, Jon. That wish was pretty vague... maybe we can fix this without violating the laws of the stone."
Jon nodded and climbed off the bed, dropping to her hands and knees. Reaching deep under the bed, she began to feel around. She searched under the bed for a long couple of minutes, though, and the longer she was under there, the more concerned the expression on her face grew. At last she withdrew her hands and raised herelf to a sitting positiong. "Karyn" she said, her face pale with horror. "I think it's gone."
